#11 Podcast: Called to Create with Jordan Raynor

Podcast Transcript

Below is the podcast transcript from our interview with Jordan Raynor. Enjoy!

Begin Transcript:

Welcome to Startup Revival, the number one podcast for Christian entrepreneurs, with your hosts Matthew Bell and Rafael Simpson. The world needs more entrepreneurs. Build something.

Matthew Bell: Hello everyone, this is Matthew Bell. Thanks for tuning in to Startup Revival. Before we get started, I just want to remind you of a few things. Startup Revival is all about the community. So if you have any feedback or comments or questions you’d like us to address in the podcast, feel free to let us know. You can send us an email at [email protected]. And also, be sure to join the online community. Go to Facebook.com/groups/startuprevival. It’s a great place to meet other entrepreneurs and learn some new and interesting things. Thanks, everyone. Enjoy the podcast.

Hey everyone, this is Matt Bell again. I just want to take a moment to formally introduce our guest for this week’s show.

His name is Jordan Raynor. Jordan is a serial entrepreneur and a bestselling author. He currently serves as the CEO of a venture-backed tech startup called Threshold 360. He has worked in electoral politics and has even spent time in George W. Bush’s White House. His first book, Startup Stories, debuted as the number one bestseller on Amazon for its category. He is a highly sought after public speaker who has spoken at Harvard, South by Southwest, TED, the World Forum for Democracy, The Guardian’s Activate Summit, and many other events around the world. In addition to all that, he has also been selected as a Google Fellow – twice. He currently resides in Tampa, Florida, with his wife Kara and their two young daughters, Ellison and Kate, where his family attends the church at Odessa.

It was truly a privilege to interview Jordan and I hope you are as blessed as I was by it. So, enjoy this week’s podcast.

Alright everyone, this is Matthew Bell with Startup Revival again and with me—I am so excited about today’s guest—I have Jordan Raynor. He is an entrepreneur, a technologist, a businessman, and the author of Called to Create. So Jordan, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the show.

Jordan Raynor: Thanks for having me, Matt. I’m thrilled to be here.

Matthew Bell: Yeah, it’s great. When I saw the title of your book I knew that we were kindred spirits and we just had to connect, so it’s super-exciting to have you on the show. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your career, and what brought you up to this point today.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah. Yeah, it’s a great question. So thanks again for having me. So yeah, so I spent my whole career as an entrepreneur and a creative. So kind of in the introduction to the book, I kind of established that—I really use these terms interchangeably. So I’ve been somebody who’s identified with the traditional labels for both of those terms. Growing up, I loved music. I was a music major for six weeks at Florida State before I realized I wanted to make money. So I’ve always identified with the creative label. But it was a little bit later on, right as I was exiting college, that I started to embrace the title of entrepreneur and very quickly realized that those are kind of one and the same thing. So an entrepreneur as I define in the book is anybody who takes a risk to create something new for the good of others. I think that’s the essence of entrepreneurship, and to me that’s not that much different than composing a song or taking a risk in creating a piece of art that has never been created before. It’s a very similar process.

So yeah, so my career really launched in the political space. I did a brief stint in the Bush White House. When I was in college, decided that politics wasn’t the path I wanted to go down, but I still was really interested in it but decided to run a political technology startup instead. I got a job offer from a founder of a company that couldn’t run the company full-time [00:04:24] and saw a big opportunity. So he hired me on as CEO and funded it for a while. We grew that business really quickly and ever since then—that was the bug. I caught it. I loved running that business and ever since then I’ve been starting and selling companies in a bunch of different markets. My first acquisition was a company I owned that did political tech development. So we developed online fundraising software and did email marketing and all that good stuff, had a nice acquisition early on in my career there.

And yeah, so I won’t go into all the stories, but today I’m running a well-funded venture-backed technology startup called Threshold 360 where we are basically trying to do a Google [00:05:06] Street View for the inside of every building on earth. So 360 photography is nothing new, but we basically figured out how to make it really inexpensive to go capture this content and we’ve created the content for about a hundred thousand public locations across the United States and a few cities internationally. Really fun business, really big opportunity. I’m honored to run it.

But you know, the genesis of this book was really me wrestling with questions about how my faith connects with my work. Back in 2013-2014, I was exiting a company that I had been running for a while and trying to decide what was next, and I was either going to go start another company or I was going to go plant a church. My wife and I thought that God might have been calling us to plant a church in Washington, D.C. and some good mentors around me pulled me aside and they were like, “Hey, God has clearly called you and given you the gift to be a good entrepreneur. You’ve had success in your career. Why do you think you should take that and then go plant a church? Sure, skills are transferrable, but you’re clearly called to build businesses and to employ people and create jobs and create wealth.” And I never heard that before. Growing up in the church, I think we hear that the calling of the pastor or the “full-time missionary” is the ultimate calling, and [00:06:29] that was the first time that I really heard that challenge. And so I dug into Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor, which is probably the single most influential book in my life outside of the Bible, and it was the first time where I heard like yeah, our work can be eternally significant.

And so Called to Create, this book that I’ve got coming out in November, is really my search for answers to the question of, “What does it look like to integrate my Christian faith with my work specifically as an entrepreneur in the discipline of building companies or creating new things?” And yeah, that’s me and that’s kind of how I got to this point, and so excited to get the book into people’s hands. Every day I meet—I’m up here in Boston right now for a meetup with members of the Called to Create community. Everywhere I go I’m meeting dozens, in some cities hundreds, of people who are saying, “Yes, I’ve always known I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a creative, but I’ve never seen biblical truths outlining that that’s a calling from God, that that’s a good thing, and that I can use entrepreneurship [00:07:35] and creativity as a means of glorifying God, as a means of loving others really well and making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Matthew Bell: Wow. There is so much meat there. That’s just incredible. So I’m going to try and just pick apart a couple of—I’ve been taking notes over on my end.

Jordan Raynor: I love it, yeah.

Matthew Bell: But, so actually we share a similar testimony.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah.

Matthew Bell: I had a radical encounter with God when I was 22 and I was just embarking on my career, and I thought at that moment that in order for me to serve God I had to go into full-time ministry. I didn’t think about it that way. I wanted to serve God and what I thought the path to doing that was to leave my career, go into full-time ministry, either be a missionary or work inside the four walls of the church. So you kind of had a similar kind of story like that.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah.

Matthew Bell: So what was it like for you? I mean, did you feel when you were pursuing the church plan—what was it like? Because obviously you’re called to business, you’re called to entrepreneurship.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew Bell: I want to talk more about your company, but tell me about the transition from mindset because I think there’s literally, you know, 95% of the church hasn’t felt that freedom yet, which is, “I can serve God in the marketplace,” or “I can serve God in business.” Tell me about your story from wanting to start a church plant ultimately to taking the leap into business and entrepreneurship.

Jordan Raynor: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So hind sight is 20/20, right? So now that I’ve written this book and talked to—in writing this book I interviewed probably 65, 70 Christian entrepreneurs and creatives in really trying to understand how they discern their calling. This book is essentially just answers to my questions that I’ve had about this topic throughout my career. But looking back, the process of “what is the biblical approach to discerning our calling” that I outline in the book is really the process in a very organized way that I took back in 2013 when I was making this decision, and it was essentially looking around and saying, “Okay, what do I really love? What did God wire me to be really passionate about?” That was the first question.

And so for me, sure, I was passionate about starting companies, but ultimately I’m passionate about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its impact that it can have on people’s lives. So I was passionate about that. I had gone to a church-planting event at my church and they were talking about Washington, D.C. and the need for church planters in Washington, D.C. I’m passionate about D.C. It’s my favorite city in the world. I love it so much. And so I was like, “Oh yeah, great, I’m passionate about that.”

But I think the second question you’ve got to ask yourself when discerning your calling is, what are you gifted at? So for me, that’s where the real tension was in deciding whether or not to plant a church or whether or not to start another company. So I was like, “Yeah, I’m a gifted entrepreneur,” but I was looking at what it takes to be a good church planter. I was like, “Oh, these skills are actually very similar.” They align very, very well.

But I think the third question is what ultimately led me down the road of starting another company, and it’s the question of, where has God revealed clear opportunities, kind of the path of least resistance, for me to align my passions and my gifts to serve others? And to me, moving to D.C. to plant a church, I think that would have been a fine decision, but that would have been a pretty radical departure from where I was in my career. That definitely wasn’t the path of least resistance.

The path of least resistance was I had seen an opportunity, I already had an idea for a company in the back of my head, it was kind of a unique consulting/venture-capital structure, and that was the opportunity. I was like, “Oh yeah, here’s an opportunity that I have to help others create new value in the marketplace for others to create jobs, for others to use their businesses to make disciples of Jesus Christ.” And so that’s the path I went down. I ended up starting a consultancy that I ran for a year and a half before one of my clients—Threshold 360—recruited me to be its second CEO. But the name of my consultancy was Vocreo, a totally made-up word, but basically I combined the Latin words for calling – vocatio, and create – creo, to mean “called to create.” This was the ethos of that company that came out in 2013, and then eventually I got the concept for the book and here we are.

Matthew Bell: That’s really cool, very cool. Wow, that’s really neat. Interesting story. Well, I want to first say and just from, you know, we’ve been emailing a little bit and this is our first real chance to get to know each other, I want to say you would have made an excellent church planter. But, the world would have lost an incredible entrepreneur because, I agree with you, in some respects it takes the same skill set to launch a church plant or launch a nonprofit or a charity, but if you take those skill sets and you put them to good use in the marketplace you can build sustainable value, you can create jobs, and then you could be the one to finance the church plants or you can be the one to finance the mission trips.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew Bell: So I think that that’s really interesting and I think that a lot of our audience can really…that can resonate with a lot of you. So I think just to encourage you, if you’re listening, that there is so much power to use your creativity to go out and build business that can ultimately fund kingdom practice, which is what you’re out there doing. So, really interesting stuff.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah, and I think to that point real quick, Matt, I think that’s certainly one kingdom-building use of entrepreneurship. So you got to talk about the purpose of profit in the book and, you know, if we believe that it is God who produces results through us—which I believe, I think Scripture makes that very clear, not us humans producing results, it is God Himself—that he owns any abundance that we’re entrusted [00:13:41] we got to be generous with that abundance and see that abundance as something [00:13:45] well. But I think the conversation around stewardship and generosity has been overly simplistic. As an entrepreneur, I think it can be very easy to fall into this trap of, “I’m going to go make a lot of money so that I could fund people who are doing real ministry.”

And to your point earlier, Matt, 95% of the church hasn’t realized that they can serve the Lord through the marketplace. I think we got to help people understand that, “No, no, no, no, it’s not just getting to the big exit and making $10 million on an exit and funding ministry.” While you’re building that company, you’re doing ministry. You’re doing ministry when you are providing an excellent service to people and revealing God’s character through the products that you create.

I tell the story of Arthur Guinness, a little-known story, but Arthur Guinness’ story is incredible. He basically created Guinness beer as a result of the gin craze because people were getting sick on water, they were drinking gin because it was clean, they were getting wasted, and it’s like, “I’m going to make an alcoholic drink that’s low in alcohol and really filling and also nutritious,” and he was loving and serving others. So it’s not just using business as a means of accumulating wealth to fund “ministry,” but it’s seeing our businesses and our nine to five and every day as an opportunity to live out our calling and make great products that serve people to make disciples of Jesus Christ, and, oh yes, Matt, to your point—absolutely—being generous with the wealth that we create and using it to further the kingdom.

Matthew Bell: So God has entrusted you with the business and, again, I really like how you put it that it’s God working through us. We just have to get out and go do it, but it’s God who brings the fruit.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah.

Matthew Bell: But then, when you run a company, well, you could have a hundred or 200 or more employees under your leadership that you have the direct opportunity to influence their lives, to be a counselor to them, to provide an example through leadership. So I think that the responsibility is tremendous and the opportunity is significant as far as bringing ministry into business, and I think you can’t decouple the two, right?

Matthew Bell: Yeah. So I love that. So here’s a question I have for you, Jordan.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah.

Matthew Bell: So you sent me the digital copy of your book. Thank you for doing that.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew Bell: I haven’t had a chance to read it. I haven’t had a chance to read yet but I skimmed it, and the thing that struck me right out of the introduction is the first line that says, “God was the first entrepreneur.” So that is so interesting to me. Help me understand your thinking behind that statement, because I think I get it but…

Jordan Raynor: Yeah, so to be totally fair [00:16:49], it’s right there at the beginning of the book to sell books. I mean, but I actually believe it. It does its job. It grabs your attention. It reshapes how we think about the omnipotent God that we serve.

Yeah, so let’s break it down. “Entrepreneur” is one of these terms that we throw around a lot. Being an entrepreneur is super-attractive. Everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. We use the word all the time. It’s on TV. It’s in movies. But if you ask people what an entrepreneur is, it’s actually a very difficult term to define, and contemporary dictionaries, the way they define it it’s all about basically managing an enterprise, taking a risk to manage an enterprise to produce a gain. And I think that that definition is lacking, in my opinion, if I’m allowed to have on the definition of a word that dates back to the 17th century.

But when we hear the word “entrepreneur,” we think of entrepreneur as like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey and Jessica Alba. We think about these people as entrepreneurs. Yes they took a risk, yes they manage their enterprise, but we think of as entrepreneurs because they created something new in the world for the good of other people. I think that’s an essential ingredient to the definition. So the way I’ve defined entrepreneur in the book is—my humble submission to this work—is entrepreneur is anybody who takes a risk to create something new for the good of others.

And when you look at the character of God, it’s fascinating. Before the Bible tells us—in church every Sunday, we hear that God is loving, that he’s omnipotent, that he is just, that he is merciful. All these things are obviously true. But the first thing the Bible tells us about God’s character is that he’s a creator. In the beginning, God created. Literally, the first thing he revealed to us about Himself is that he’s a creator. So God clearly created something new. He created everything new in Genesis. We see that unfolding throughout the first pages of Scripture. I believe Scripture’s pretty clear that He did it for the good of others. So God had perfect unity with the Trinity, perfect communion with the Trinity forever. He certainly didn’t need us. So it begs the question, why did he create humankind? And I think it’s a fair assumption to say he created us because he wanted to. He created the world because he wanted to. He got joined to it and he created to share that perfect communion that the Trinity had been experiencing for all the time with others. Otherwise, why would he create humankind.

So he created something new. He created for the good of others. The third box, which is by far the most controversial, is, did God take a risk? And when we think about risk today, we think of the great unknown. So we’re running Threshold 360 right now, we’re investing a lot of money into it – it’s very risky. Things are going really well but it’s very risky. It may not work. So there’s a lot of unknowns as flawed human beings. For God, obviously that’s not true. He’s omnipotent. He knows everything that’s going to happen. So there’s not a risk in the sense that god didn’t know what was going to happen.

But I think it’s a different risk. When God created human beings in His image, He knew that we would sin and he knew that that creation was going to cost Him His Son. He was willing to make the sacrifice of sending Christ to Earth to die in our behalf so that we could spend eternity with Him. So maybe “sacrifice” is a better word than “risk,” but to me that’s the ultimate risk. He created us knowing full well what the consequences were going to be and what that was going to require of His Son.

So that’s why I describe God as the first entrepreneur. He created something new, He did it for the good of others, and He took a risk when He did. So when we do the same things, just the very nature of us doing that, of taking risk, of creating new things, is a reflection of His character. And at the end of the day, that’s what glorifying God is. Glorifying God is just making His character more known to the world.

Matthew Bell: That’s awesome. I love it. This is really great. It’s a really interesting and fresh perspective and something that I grabbed a hold of right away. I’m actually going to read, if you don’t mind, just a sentence from your book, which is in the introduction.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah.

Matthew Bell: So obviously you started with God was the first entrepreneur, and you say later on in that intro is, “We are made in the image of the first entrepreneur. Thus, when we follow His call to create—business, nonprofits, art, music, books, and other things—we’re not just doing something good for the world, we’re doing something God likes.” So I just want to—that’s a [00:21:46] moment if I’ve ever heard one. That is just a pause for anyone who’s listening who has ever sat in a church on Sunday feeling inspired but then goes home and feels dread about your workday the next day. There is probably something else that you could put your creativity into. God did not create us to go through life as drones. He created us to live life abundantly. And for me, and I know that that’s probably the case for you because you exude this, Jordan, is that for me, when I create I feel most alive.

Jordan Raynor: Absolutely.

Matthew Bell: So I’m a writer myself. I have a book that’s in the works right now. I’ve [00:22:33] screenplays. I’ve created art. I’ve created businesses. I’ve created mobile apps and products. I am most alive during that process. I feel most connected to God during that process because, and this is, you know, your teaching here in your book is really making me understand why I feel most alive during that process. It’s because the creator in me is coming alive and the creator in me is the image of God, the first entrepreneur. So, super-super-refreshing to hear this type of perspective on just what we’re capable of in this life.

Jordan Raynor: Yeah.

Matthew Bell: Yeah. So here we go. Jordan, we’ve been chatting a little bit now and I want to bring us home. For the folks who are listening right now—I’m sure we have a couple of different cohorts who are tuned into us. There are the folks who already identify as entrepreneurs. There are the folks who have had ideas or maybe have dreamt of starting a company or something or maybe just a side business of their own that could be theirs. We’ll call all of those Christian entrepreneurs. What would be your number one piece of advice to him or her who’s listening who feels like they fit that model as they think about getting started with something of their own?

Jordan Raynor: Wow. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. So for the person who’s thinking about getting started, my biggest piece of advice would be to look at Scripture, look at—I think a big part of why a lot of Christians don’t get started creating is they don’t feel like it’s a good usage of their time and their resources and their energy. Look to Scripture. Look at the example of Jesus. Look at the fact that God could have placed Jesus in any household. Given the trajectory of his life, we would have expected Jesus to wind up in the home of Pharisees maybe, like Paul, maybe the home of a priest. But no, God placed Jesus in the home of a carpenter, and if you really dig into it and you study up on what carpenters were like in the first century, they were modern-day entrepreneurs. They were negotiating bids. They were exchanging goods. They were creating new things. They were taking risks to create new things for the good of others. And the only thing we know about Jesus’ life from the age of 12 to the age of 30 is that he was a carpenter. He spent 80% of his working career being an entrepreneur, being a creative. That should give us incredible pause.

So I would encourage you, look to Jesus as inspiration and get started at the work that you do. The creative work that you’ve been holding out on is eternally significant. It’s important. You’re modeling the image of God and the image of Jesus Christ.

If I can add a second thing, Matt, even though you didn’t ask me for one, on a more practical level in nitty-gritty detail, I talk to a lot of people. It’s like every day I’m fielding questions via email or in person or by phone of, “Hey, I got this great idea I don’t know what to do with. I don’t know how to get started.” And I’m a big believer in David Allen’s Getting Things Done, another very influential book in my life, and basically it’s all about getting things done and just setting really clear objectives. I find that most people who have an idea haven’t really clearly articulated what their desired outcome is – either what the product is, why they’re doing what they’re doing, what their objective is in terms of revenue. So I think the best first step is to write down exactly what you want to accomplish, exactly when you want to accomplish it by, and then define just the single next action that will help move the ball just a little bit down the field to get there. So that’s kind of the secret sauce of getting things done, is take these big projects and then break them down into, “Just what is the very next physical thing I can do in order to move a little bit closer towards that goal?” So at a more practical level, that’s what I would encourage you to do.

Matthew Bell: Wow, that’s actually something I just heard not too long ago, which is if you’re a visionary and you have a big picture, it could take you a few years to complete it, like starting a company for instance can take a lot of time. So you can become frustrated if you’re only looking at the end picture of that vision, but you can feel more accomplished on a daily basis if you’re writing down your Getting Things Done list or you’re little to-do list, and then you can celebrate the wins that bring you towards the end goal. Absolutely.

Matthew Bell: Well, Jordan, that is just super-practical stuff. So before we wrap up here, guys, I want to share with you just Jordan’s website, so calledtocreate.org. You can go there, you can go preorder his book. I’m going to do the same. Even though I have the digital copy, I’m old-fashioned, I prefer a hard copy. I’m going to preorder it myself.

And Jordan, maybe you can share a little bit about this trip that you’re doing. It looks like you’re running a chance to win a trip to Europe for anyone who preorders the book. Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Jordan Raynor: Yeah, I’d love to, real quickly. Yes. So, by the way, most people don’t understand why preorders matter. I certainly didn’t before I was a traditionally published author. Preorders matter a tremendous—they’re a very, very big deal. So one, retailers are trying to estimate how many copies of the book they’re going to buy. So Barnes & Noble’s going through their process right now with Called to Create. Thankfully, preorders are really strong. So they’re ordering a lot of copies. It’s a really, really big deal.

And so in order to incentivize people to preorder the book—by the way, personally, I never preorder books unless it’s Tim Keller’s book, so I knew I needed to give some really incentives for people to do it. So we’re giving away a trip for two people to go to Europe for a week and visit the homes and workplaces of some of the European entrepreneurs and creatives whose stories I tell in the book. So you and your friends are going to go to Arthur Guinness’ brewery in Dublin. If you’re ever read The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, you’re going to go see Casper ten Boom’s watch shop, which was literally the front door for the anti-Nazi resistance movement in the Netherlands back in World War II. You’re going to go to Oxford to go hang out at the pub that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis used to hang out at. You’re going to go tour C.S. Lewis’ home in Oxford. And then you’re going to go to London for what I think is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So C.S. Lewis’ stepson, a guy by the name of Douglas Gresham, is going to meet the winners. I’m actually going to come over to London just for the weekend for dinner and we’re going to meet the winners for a private dinner, and you’re going to have an opportunity to chat with literally the last person alive who personally knew C.S. Lewis.

Matthew Bell: Wow.

Jordan Raynor: Doug lived with Lewis at The Kilns for 10 years I think it was after Lewis married Douglas Gresham’s mother, Joy Davidman. A truly incredible experience. He’s an amazing guy and he’s also an amazing culture creator in his own right. He’s the producer of the most recent Chronicles of Narnia movies with Disney. Fascinating guy. Really, really fun conversationalist. You’re going to have a ton of fun.

Matthew Bell: That sounds awesome.

Jordan Raynor: [00:29:56] So yes, go preorder the book, calledtocreate.org, enter the sweepstakes, and hopefully I’ll see you in London.

Matthew Bell: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I’m going to get involved there. Everyone who’s listening, make sure you go to calledtocreate.org and you can preorder the book, you can enter to win a trip to Europe, and if you have any questions for Jordan himself you can go to calledtocreate.org/contact. I’m sure you have a team, Jordan, managing those responses, those…

Jordan Raynor: It’s all me. It’s all me. I got other stuff, so you’ll get a reply from me [00:30:29] I promise you that.

Matthew Bell: I want to meet you in person, so next time you’re in Austin let’s make sure we connect.

Jordan Raynor: We’ll do it in Austin. Let’s do it in Austin.

Matthew Bell: Absolutely.

Jordan Raynor: We’ll do it at Torchy’s Tacos or Gordo’s or something like that. That’ll be a lot of fun.

Matthew Bell: Alright. I love that. I go to Torchy’s at least once or twice a week.

Jordan Raynor: I love it.

Matthew Bell: It’s the best tacos in the country.

Jordan Raynor: So good, so good.

Matthew Bell: But anyway, thanks so much, Jordan. Thanks so much and…

Jordan Raynor: Alright, man. [00:31:02]

That was Startup Revival, brought to you by your hosts Matt Bell and Rafael Simpson. Tune in next week to hear more stories from entrepreneurs and businesspeople to inspire, encourage and motivate you in your business journey. Have a great week.

[00:31:30]

God placed Jesus in the home of a carpenter, and if you really dig into it and you study up on what carpenters were like in the first century, they were modern-day entrepreneurs